to say something to my mother this year or smile and silently seethe like all previous years.

[LookJohnLookJanetLook]

My mother has four children, and 9 grandchildren. (Parents are separated, my father does his own thing).

Through her own choice she never babysits and sees us all about once every other month when we go and visit her. She speaks to us most days on the phone and is happy that is the extent that she is involved in our lives.

For christmas mum gives each family £100 cash to be used during the year taking the family on a day out, she then also says to buy a token gift for the kids to open and to say it's from her (we each see her for about 15 minutes max over the Christmas period, some years my siblings won't get to see her at all, but I make sure every year that at some point we call in) and she always says she'll give us the cash for this (she never has yet).

Then throughout the year every time we go out as a family she bangs on about this being because she gave us the money at Christmas.

This £400 total is her total Christmas spend this equates to 0.16% of her annual income so it's not that she's hard up.

Would I be unreasonable this year to say that I'm using the £100 to pay for the "token" gifts and get us all something for £25 each rather than be out of pocket for the token gifts?

And if she insists that the £100 is a day out not to buy token gifts and insist she has to purchase those herself?

And this one I may be unreasonable on, explain that £100 doesn't cover the majority of days out anymore - i.e. in her mind it pays for theme parks and food and fuel - it realistically pays for the fuel to get there or the park tickets but not the whole thing?

Or should I carry on doing what I do every year - smile and say thank you for the £100, and purchase the token gift deducting it from Santa's budget?

(Sorry for such a long post)

In answer to the question re phonecalls and not visiting/seeing

it's easy to make a 5 minute phone call ask how each individual is, then hang up, and then you can tell your friends you are very involved in your grandchildren's lives!!! Because you know what they are doing but don't have to put yourself out.

why not invite her on the trip you spend the £100 on, then she will see for herself,

Out of interest how do you know her yearly income?

Yearly income - oh she tells me on an almost weekly basis!

After the first trip that you actually use the £100 for, when the next trip happens and she says "glad to see the Christmas money was put to good use again!" can't you just say, "oh no mum we already used that for . We paid for this one!". Problem sooooolved.

If you say roughly where you live, I bet I can find you somewhere that will cost you significantly less than £100 for all of you to go to as a day out. For example, we have a place locally which you can get annual membership to for £50 for a family. That's lots of days out.

I know that's not really your issue though. Your issue is your Mum's involvement in your lives. It is a tough situation.

Token gifts also suggest a couple of pounds at most to me. Again, I know this isn't really what you're disgruntled about.

It's nothing to do with amounts or percentage of salary really. It's a about feigned involvement in your life. The bit to be cross about isn't the amount of money. I suspect you're focussing on that for the wrong reasons. Were your dm more involved, £100 would be (is in fact in isolation) very generous and more than enough for a day out and some token gifts on the day.

Wow. You sound grabby, tbh. I can't believe you worked out the money as a percentage of her income.

Smile and don't bother worrying if she likes to think she paid for a whole year of family outings with 100 pounds. Think of that as the gift of giving, to her from you. :) Anonymous good deeds are the best ones! Maybe buy a family membership zoo pass and tell her you used it towards that? I don't know UK prices, but it would pay for over half of a family membership at Chester Zoo (I looked it up, it's 188 pounds)
Has she ever asked about the "token gifts" afterwards?

What about buying something for family days out that would do exactly as she thinks? Eg. National Trust family membership costs almost exactly £100 these days. You could buy it with the cash and say outright, ah yes, the family membership costs £97 thank you very much. It will cover entry to NT for a whole year. We will think of you every time we go. Now the kids are getting older I'm stumped about what token gifts they'd like. Could you get them a selection pack each, that would be brilliant?" Job done and granny gets exactly what she thinks/claims she's getting and is in no doubt about what it paid for. You can even invite her along to a historic house for a day out and the bonus is she'll have to pay for her own entry! ;)

I think you just need to be honest and say exactly what you spent the money on. If she is financially well off, which you have implied she is, she may have little concept of how much things like days out to e.g. theme parks, theatres etc actually cost. So she may genuinely believe she is funding all of these, plus some nice presents.

So you have 2 options:

Either tell her "Thank you, we will spend this on e.g. theatre tickets", and afterwards phone up and to thank her.

Or have several mini trips that are cheaper e.g. bowling, cinema and ice skating, and phone her up after each trip to thank her.

Don't bother to tell her about any other trips you have paid for yourself, so she won't assume her money is going on them. Just make sure that the trip she is paying for, 100% of the cost comes out of the £100.

(Or you could put the spare £3 towards her day out :p)

Or, you could ask her to join you in an outing, ask book tickets for the family to the panto or whatever and use the £100 for your share. And say the kids would love an icecream in the interval as their token gift. At Xmas tell them/everyone that the trip to the panto is granny's lovely present and she's v kind indeed to plan such a lovely trip, plus icecream for all!

I am seeing so many threads lately about resentment regarding money and families. I'm not sure if its the recession causing this, times a hard, people are stressed and simmering, or whether there is a back story, but if my parent(s) offered me £100 for Christmas - be it for a day out or gifts, I eould be exceptionally grateful. Not spitting feathers.

As it is my dad tucks £20 in a card for me and my mum buys me some socks, body lotion, little trinkets etc.

I honestly find these threads a bit weird.

sebsmummy that's because you're seeing it as about money and actually it's about her mother using money wrongly so as to make herself feel she's a good grandparent.

But you can't force someone to be an active grandparent. If they want to be involved then great, but they don't have to- maybe she thinks that she has done her bit child-wise so doesn't really want to babysit.

It's very rarely about the money, it's about the lack of love and support and thoughtfulness of the gift giver. It hurst when you're parents don't love and support you on any level - and that sort of gift just reinforces it.

Villandra I am sure you are right. If so the OP would have been far better highlighting that aspect of her post as opposed to the money side. As that just makes her look ungrateful and materialistic.

Would it make a difference if it was the grandfather rather than the grandmother doing this?

Somehow I don't think Grandads are as expected to be involved with the babysitting and active 'caring' as grannies.

Sebsmummy we read it differently then, I have a feeling the whole thread is about that actually, what with her saying it and all.

Sebs I posted this thread because I'm fed up of my mother feeling that her £100 is the reason that my kids go out anywhere.

She doesn't facilitate anything really in the grand scheme of things, effectively she has purchased an afternoon of entertainment for my group.

But if you were to listen to her, you would think we would be sat staring at our 4 walls day in day out if it wasn't for the £100 she gave us.

She doesn't want to come out with any of her grandkids (absolutely her choice).

A bit of a case of cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I would prefer not to have the £100 for one afternoon out, because at least then she wouldn't believe in her mind that she facilitates everythng in our lives.

My mum gives us National trust membership plus a token gift every year, it is a lovely idea

But at some point we just have to grow up a bit and get over having crap parents. My mum has been a lovely mum, my dad has been pretty crap, that has made me the independent person I am. He had a crap mum and was beaten, he knew no better, I forgive him.

If the £100 minus the token gift money gets attributed to every family day out the OP reports back on. Then I suggest they say 'oh thank you so much for the Christmas money, we spent it in a lovely day out at the zoo/play centre/local kids thingy' and then everytime the money gets attributed to Alton Towers, Disney world Florida etc, op can say 'oh no we spent it when we had that lovely day out at the zoo/play centre/ local kids thingy in January'. Ad infinitum, or at least till the following year.

I think the problem is - at least for me - that I have so much bad feeling going on with the parent that being pushed and pushed repeatedly, and waiting for it as well, because I know it will come...it gets overwhelming.

I suspect therapy or mindfulness or something like that is the answer

Look john you sound lovely and I'm absolutely sure there is much more to this story and you are right to be majorly pissed off. You are not going to change her though, you can only change your reaction to her.

So you need to sit down and work out what you can do to change this rinse and repeat cycle. Maybe tell her you are going to pop the money into a trust fund for the children instead? Just do something different this year and you may get a different result.

Yep thanks Mum would suffice and grow up.

But duckyfuzz when you say you've gone to the cinema, does your mother say "wonderful that the Christmas money is being used for your days out".